In the early 1970s, in a small town far from Moscow, Anna, a candidate of arts history, learns that an ancient icon has gone missing from a monastery. She sets out to search for the icon, not realizing that these clues will lead her to a dangerous secret.
Aleksey Smirnov von Rau(h) was known for his prose in the 1960s, and later spent thirty years in churches restoring frescoes. His novel «The Dionysius Board», written in 1976, shows the harsh truth of life in Soviet society and remains a lost masterpiece demonstrating how relevant the central questions of life in Rus’ are.